"Their complaint was that they did not get enough to eat": Landscape of Child Labor at the Blackfeet Boarding School, Montana

Summary

The boarding school system of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was designed by the United States government as a formal program to eradicate Native American cultural identities and lifeways. It was a system that removed Native children from their families and forced them into to a way of life that garishly clashed with their traditional beliefs and culture. One of the primary goals of the Cut Bank Boarding School on the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Montana was to transform children of the Blackfeet Tribe in northern Montana into sedentary farmers. Corruption, cruelty, and mismanagement forced these children to endure forced labor and deprivation while operating the school’s farm. Recent research uncovered a landscape of child labor and disregard for the welfare of those who the government was committed to protect. Through the lens of archaeology and archival research, the story of these children is being told.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017   •
• Indigenous Perspectives on Historical Archaeology of Colonialism

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 553